For the crumble topping

Butter is made when lactic-acid producing bacteria are added to cream and churned to make an…

85g caster or light muscovado sugar

Method

Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5. Put the chopped apples, lemon zest, rosemary, if using, and sugar in a saucepan. Add the lemon juice and cook for 3-4 mins. Tip in the pears and cook 2-3 mins more, until the fruits are just beginning to soften. Spoon the fruits and juices into a 1.7 litre pudding dish and flatten slightly.

For the crumble, finely chop half the walnuts in a food processor until reduced to the consistency of ground almonds. Add the flour, butter and sugar and continue to blitz to a coarse or fine crumble mix, whichever you prefer.

Roughly break the remaining walnuts with your fingers and stir into the crumble. Scatter the crumble mix on top of the fruits and bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown. Serve warm with cream or custard.

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Comments, questions and tips

Comments (39)

philstaz19th Oct, 2016

Finished making this for a pot luck, and had a bit left over so made a mini one for myself. let tout the rosemary, and added cinnamon. Really tasty, and very easy to make. love the idea of the walnuts!

Skipped the rosemary (too wet to go out and get it!) added frozen blackberries and raspberries, and used stork instead of butter (lactose intolerance). Brilliant! Loved the walnuts in the crumble, keeping this recipe!!!

Great combo - I loved the way the apples n pears smelt when they were cooking with the lemon zest & rosemary, very interesting. I wonder how I could've made it more gooey? I used pecan nuts and sliced almonds in the crumble which worked well - a nice addition to the crumble mixture. Some cinnamon would've been good!

I live in China so I have to compromise and adapt recipes a fair bit. Just made my own version of this - yummy. Modified it a little - used a combination of Ginger Nuts and Dark Tim Tams for the topping, and didn't combine it with flour as I wanted a light(ish) crumble topping. Used Red Delicious and local Chinese pears. I liked the slightly lemony syrup I ended up with to cook the fruit in. Finished it off with just a little bit of pouring cream when I served it. Definitely cook this again.

This is a really lovely crumble recipe. I used a mixture of granary and white flour, and used cooking apples (the recipe was not clear about which type of apples to use). We had it for dinner last night, real comfort food with six inches of snow outside!

I made double the quantity & took it to a bonfire party last night. It was all eaten and everyone commented on how deliciously different from the usual fruit crumble. I will now use the topping for any fruits and maybe for when a cake calls for a crumble top.

I omitted the walnuts though as some in the family just don't like them, and added 6 plums to the fruit, plus a little bit of extra sugar, and used almonds in the topping. The plums added a rosy, red, Christmassy glow to the dish. Luscious.

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